The Sword and the Flame (31 page)

Esme still sat with the scroll in her lap, her eyes drinking in the marvel of the colored drawings of the Ariga book. As she studied the tiny intricacies of each picture, she began to grow sleepy. Though Bria and Morwenna still talked somewhere nearby, from her nook Esme could not see them, and their voices began to drone like the buzzing of pollen-laden bees on a lazy summer day.

She yawned, suddenly overcome by the need to sleep, as if a thick, woolen blanket had been drawn over her. She yawned again, laid the scroll on the floor at her feet, and then stretched herself on the bench, her cheek resting on her arm. Her eyes closed, and she was instantly asleep.

To Esme it seemed as if she had entered another world as soon as her eyes closed upon this one, for she found herself standing atop a high plateau in a dark and featureless land. She turned and saw men laboring nearby, bearing heavy burdens on their backs, passing by her to the very edge of the plateau. She followed at a distance and soon came to a great pyre; the men carried bundles of firewood that they dumped onto the mound and then took their places in a ring around it.

Next to the pyre stood a man with a torch in his hand. When all had thrown their wood upon the stack, the torchman thrust his torch into the tinder; but though the flames from the torch licked out and leaped among the ricks, the fuel did not ignite. The torchman withdrew his flame in frustration and called out, “More wood!” The laborers disappeared in search of more firewood, leaving Esme alone with the torchman.

“What are you doing, sir?” Esme asked.

“I am building a beacon fire,” answered the torchman, “that the people of the valley may see it, for they travel in darkness with no signal to guide them.”

“Why did you not light the signal, then?”

“I have tried, but the fuel is old and damp, and will not catch,” the torchman told her sadly. “I have called for more wood, but it is sure to be too wet as well.”

Esme was overcome with the utter futility of the enterprise and turned away. At once the landscape shifted. The dark land faded, and she found herself on a cliff near the sea where the waves rolled endlessly, tearing themselves against the rocks and washing onto the shore with a sigh. She looked and saw a tower rising up and workmen on scaffolds laying stone, building the tower higher.

She moved closer and watched as the masons raised row upon row of stonework while the quarrymen piled fresh materials beneath them on the ground. Then, without warning, a portion of the wall leaned out precariously and split away from the tower wall. The men on the scaffolding screamed in terror as the stone rained down.

The whole tower quivered, and portions began crumbling away; the workmen leaped from the scaffold and ran to get clear of the falling rock as the walls collapsed with a thunderous crash and stone plunged into the sea.

When the catastrophe was over, Esme approached the ruin and spoke to one of the workmen. “Why did the tower fall?” she asked.

He shook his head and pointed with his finger. “See, the foundation is old and soft; it crumbles away when we build on it.”

“If the old foundation will not hold, why do you not build a new foundation?” It seemed obvious to Esme, though she knew little about such matters.

But the workman threw up his hands and wailed, “We have no master to show us how to lay a new foundation!”

“Where is your master mason?” Esme glanced around and saw no one who seemed prepared to assume leadership of the workmen. The man did not answer, only shrugged and shook his head. So Esme told him, “I will find a master mason who will show you how to build aright, and I will bring him to you—” Esme stopped speaking, for the work-man and the tower had vanished like smoke on the wind, and she stood now not on a cliff by the sea, but in a busy marketplace where farmers sold their produce and merchants their wares.

The market bustled with buyers and sellers, and she heard around her the babble of voices haggling over prices and the quality of goods bought and sold. She passed by the butcher's stall and saw him cutting up a carcass, slicing meat from a large bone. With a wink to her, the butcher, dressed in a long dark robe, took the bone and tossed it out of the stall, where instantly it was pounced upon by hungry dogs who came running from every corner of the marketplace.

The dogs fell upon the bone and began fighting over it, first one dog snapping at it, then another. One dog would succeed in snatching it up in his jaws, only to have it taken away by another, larger dog.

A crowd gathered to watch the fight as savage snarls and growls filled the air. “Stop it!” shouted Esme. “Please, somebody stop it!”

But the onlookers did not heed her, and the dogs fought ever more fiercely. She buried her face in her hands and turned away, but the terrible sounds grew louder and when she looked again, she saw not a long, clean length of bone on the ground, but a square of cloth in the jaws of the dogs. Each had a corner of the cloth and was pulling on it, worrying it in his teeth in a furious effort to free the cloth from the other dogs. And on the cloth Esme saw a device: a red writhing dragon.

“Stop it!” she cried. “Stop!”

36

B
less me bones, Tip, but this trip is further than I remember, eh? Yes, quite right. It always seems further when ye're in a hurry. Quite right.” Pym cocked an eye skyward and gauged the day by the sun. “Nearing mid-day, Tip. Right enough, an' I'm hungry. We'uns'd ought to a' thought to bring a bite to eat. Some of Emm's fresh-baked bread and a noggin of the dark would hit the spot, eh? And a soup bone for ye, Tipper. Yes?”

The black dog wagged her tail to the sound of her master's voice and walked along beside him, lifting her ears now and then when a rabbit or squirrel rustled the leaves of a holly bush near the road as they passed. But Tip did not give chase, content merely to pad peacefully alongside her master, to press her head into his hand now and then to receive a loving pat or a scratch between her ears.

Presently they came to a place in the road that looked to the tinker somehow familiar. “Ho there, Tip. This be the place, I'll warrant. What say ye? Looks the place to me, eh? Yes, it does.” Pym gave a quick glance in both directions along the road to see if he had been followed, or if any other travelers were about to see him.

They were alone, so he stepped quickly into the forest, pushing through a yew thicket to where the forest thinned somewhat and a trail wound among the trunks of trees.

“Is this the place, Tip? I tell ye, I don't know. Thought 'twas, I did. Now I'm not acertain.” After some time wandering among the trees, Pym decided that they had not remembered the right place after all and so retraced his steps to the road once more and set off.

“Ah!” he cried a little farther down the way. “This must be it! Yes, how could I forget?” Again they pushed into the forest only to become disoriented before going very far. “No, sir.” Pym stood with his hand on his hip, craning his neck up at the tall trees surrounding him. “'Twern't here. This's nivver the place, Tipper. Back we go.”

The noonday sun shone down through the interwoven branches above, casting a fretwork of cool shadow upon them as they trudged down the bare earth yet again. The farther they went, the less certain the tinker became. “I don't know how I'll ivver find it, Tip. I don't seem to recall the place—ivverthing looks so unlikely hereabouts.” He stopped and stared around him. “I don't know what to do, Tip. What we'uns need is a sign. That's it, yessir. A sign!”

So taken was he with the notion of a sign that Pym clasped his hands right then and there and raised them up to the heavens. “Hear me, ye gods!” At a sudden thought he added, “'Specially whativver god it is the Dragon King serves. I'll warrant ye'd be more concerned with the king, so hear me, whativver yer name might be.”

Pym paused here to consider how to proceed, nodded to himself, and then continued, “Ye see, the king has lost his son—snatched away he were, yes, and he needs his sword to get the boy back with. Now, I don't know fer acertain that the sword we'uns found belongs to the king, but might do—'tis a handsome sword.

“Now,” explained Pym carefully, “I have put this sword by in a safe place, ye see. Trouble is, I can't remember me where. Don't recognize this place no more, ye see—and me who's been atraveling this road fer a score of years, too. That's why I am calling on ye fer to help. I need a sign to show the way to the sword—where I left it, that is.”

The tinker lowered his hands, thought for a moment, then raised them again and added, “It's not fer me, it's fer the king, ye see. He's in trouble bad; he is, and likely needs his sword—leastwise it couldn't hurt. Since yer his god, maybe ye could send the sign. That is, if ye have a care fer mortal troubles.”

Pym stopped speaking, and lowered his hands. “Well, Tipper—,” he began, but before he could finish, the big black dog began barking. “Shh! What is it, lady girl? Eh, Tip? What is it?”

Out from an immense gorse hedge stepped a black stag. Tip barked furiously, but the deer, moving slowly, regally, head high and antlers glinting in the sun like silver, remained calm and unperturbed. The graceful animal crossed the road, passing not more than a dozen paces in front of them, and then stopped to look at the man and dog watching him.

Tip barked, her tongue hanging sideways out of her mouth, legs stiff, hackles raised. Pym laid a hand to her collar. The stag moved with lordly pomp once more into the forest, paused to eye the spectators one last time—as much as to say, “Follow me, if you dare”—then lifted its forelegs over a bayberry bush and leaped away, its tail bobbing white behind.

Tip could not stay still any longer. She barked wildly and shook her head, pulling free of her master's grip; the chase was on. “Tip! Come back here!” shouted Pym after the bounding dog. Tip reached the bay-berry bush, paused to yap once at her master, and then wriggled through the bush and after the deer.

“By the gods' beards!” muttered Pym, “I don't know what's come on that dog.” He could hear Tip yelping excitedly as she crashed through the brush after her game. Pym sighed and trudged off into the woods to retrieve his pet, knowing she could never catch the stag but would not give up easily.

He shrugged through the brush and stumbled onto the trail, hastening after the sounds of the impromptu hunt. The trail widened as he went along, broadening as it reached a place where the giant old trees grew tall, clearing all other trees from beneath their overarching limbs: huge old chestnuts, oaks, and hazels. He did not stop to gawk at the trees, but rushed along, head down, calling for Tip to come back. Then, without warning, the dog's yapping ceased. Pym plunged down a shallow bank and through a patch of creeping ivy and glanced up to find himself in a secluded hollow.

Before him, on her haunches, sat Tip, wagging her tail and panting. A little way off from them stood the stag, head lifted high, bearing its crown of antlers as regally as any king, gazing calmly at them with its great, dark, liquid eyes. As the tinker watched, the stag lifted a hoof and nudged a stone at its feet—a white stone from a neat pile of white stones.

“Tipper,” whispered Pym, hardly breathing. “Lookee there! The stag has led us to our spot!”

The deer turned and regarded them casually once more, then lowered his head and trotted smoothly away, his flowing shape blending with the forest around him and vanishing from sight.

Pym crept forward to the place where the deer had stood. “Yes, sir. This be the spot, Tip. Lookee, here's the stones we'uns left to mark it, and here's the hazelnut.” He tilted his head to regard the lofty tree, then walked around it to the hole in its hollow trunk. Taking a deep breath, Pym thrust his hand through the hole and grabbed.

His hand closed on thin air. His heart leaped to his throat.
Gone,
he thought.
Someone's taken it!
He shoved his hand deeper into the hollow space and stretched his fingers, feeling the soft damp interior of the tree, but no sword. Frantically he thrust his arm in again and searched the depths of the hidden space, feeling nothing but the spongy, rotten wood. “It's gone, Tip!” he cried hopelessly. “The sword is gone!”

Just as he was about to withdraw his arm, the tips of his fingers brushed against something hard. “What's this?” he said, and pushed his arm back in up to the shoulder, as far as it would go, standing on tip-toes, straining so hard that sweat beaded up on his face and rolled down his neck.

His hand closed on an object cold and hard. He gulped. Could it be? Yes! It was the sword! The tinker withdrew his hand slowly, and the hollow tree gave up its prize—a long, narrow bundle wrapped in tatters of rags.

“Here 'tis, Tip! We'uns found the sword! Yes, yes! Lookee, Tip, here 'tis at last!” He cradled the bundle to him and then, just to make certain, peeked between the folds of the rags. He saw a dull gleam of metal and part of an inscription on the blade. “'Tis the veery sword, Tip. The veery one as we'uns left behind. Yes, sir.” He glanced guiltily around him like a miser who fears discovery with his treasure. “But we'uns dare not stay here, no sir. It's back to Askelon and give this sword directly into the king's own hand, eh? Quite right, yes. Directly into the king's own hand.”

So saying, the tinker took a length of twine from his trouser pocket and wrapped it around the sword's concealed hilt and tied a loop through which he put his arm. He started off at once, slinging the mighty weapon over his shoulder, making for Askelon Castle to give his present to the Dragon King.